Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/48

40 So the man was led up the bank of a stream through the woods to the house of the goddess, who smiled beautifully, and whose room was carpeted with skins. She was the badger-goddess. She comforted him, fed him plenteously, and said: "You must deceive the senior chief, saying that the god of door-posts, pleased at your being buried near him, took you out, and gave you these beautiful clothes. He will then wish to have the same thing happen to him." So the man went back to the village, and appeared in all his splendid raiment before the senior chief, who had fancied him to be still in the hole,—a punishment which would be successful if it made him confess his dream, and also if it killed him.

Then the good junior chief told him the lies in which the badger-goddess had instructed him. Thereupon the senior chief caused himself to be buried in like fashion up to the neck, but soon died of the effects. Afterwards the badger-goddess came down to the village, and married the good man, who became the senior of all the chiefs.— (Written down from memory. Told by Ishanashte, 16th November, 1886.)

There was once a woman who was tenderly loved by her husband. At last, after some years, she bore him a son. Then the father loved this son even more than he loved his wife. She therefore thought thus: "How pleasant it used to be formerly, when my husband loved me alone! But now, since I have borne him this nasty child, he loves it more than he does me. It will be well for me to make away with it."

Thus thinking, she waited till her husband had gone off bear-hunting in the mountains, and then put the baby into a box, which she took to the river and allowed to float away. Then she returned home. Later on, her husband came back; and she, with feigned tears, told him that the baby had disappeared—stolen or strayed,—and that she had vainly searched all round about the house and in the woods. The man lay down, like to die of grief, and refused all food. Only at length, when he saw that his wife, too, went without